The World Keeps Burning
by bluenettle
Summary: Dean is having flashbacks from hell, so perhaps this next hunt wasn't such a good idea. Especially when he's sick as well. Slightly AU after AYTG. Sick!Dean.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

**A/N:** I wrote this after Are You There God... and some slightly different ideas came out of it than where the show went after that. So a little AU I guess. This is my first fanfic, in fact, the first piece of fiction I've written in about 14 years.... so please be gentle. Constructive criticism welcome.

SnSnSnSnSnSnSnSnSnS

When Dean woke with a stiff neck, face pressed into a stale pillow, he thought he was in that cheap motel in Louisiana again. The one with beds as hard as a prison cell floor and cockroaches under the sink. The air smelt musty and somewhere pipes rattled and hummed.

He groaned and rolled onto his back, keeping his eyes shut to the bright light that he could feel on his face, making the insides of his eyes orange. A softer moan escaped his lips when he realised his eyelids felt stuck together. Sticky and hot. When he swallowed his throat felt like sand paper. _Great_.

A loud clattering and he reached for his knife, reassuringly present under his pillow. Eyes forced half open.

Another bang and his fist gripped tighter around the blade. He sat up and a wave of nausea hit him, just a small one, not enough to stop him from throwing off the covers and planting his bare feet on the floor.

"Sam?" he rasped. "Sam, that you?"

He swallowed hard, his eyes slowly adjusting. He began to make out the familiar floral pattern under his thighs, the coat that had been covering him now crumpled on the floor. The piles of books in every corner.

Not a motel. Bobby's.

He let the knife go.

And then he remembered everything. His sore shoulder hurt like a bitch. Burned.

"No, just me Dean. You want any breakfast?" the older hunter shouted from down the hallway. "I'm makin' bacon."

Deaned breathed cautiously, anticipating the smell of salty fat that would have him running for the bathroom. But he couldn't smell anything through his stuffed up nose.

"Thank god for that," he whispered, holding his stomach.

"I'm all right thanks, Bobby," he yelled back hoarsely, then picked up his glass of water from the floor and sipped gently, sat still for a few minutes until he felt steadier. Tried not to think about flesh sizzling in a hot frying pan.

He found Sam in the study, poring over books about the end of time. His little brother didn't even look up when Dean sat down opposite him.

"This is big, Dean... I mean, really big." _I know that, Sam_. "There's so much stuff, it's so hard to know what's real... I mean, the Bible's all well and good but..." Sam's sentence trailed away.

"I get it, Sam." _Shit, that sounded a little croaky_. When Sam looked up he caught Dean massaging the back of his neck.

"You sick, Dean?" Pencil dropped lightly onto the desk. "You look kinda pale."

"Just a little cold, Sam."

Sam turned back to shuffle some papers on the desk, began reconfiguring a paperclip. "I thought I heard you moaning in your sleep last night. I, uh, decided I didn't want to know. God, I'm sorry, Dean, I should have realised you were sick. After everything you've been-"

"It's nothing, Sam." This conversation was not going to become socially awkward. "I already feel better than when I woke up. Really."

Sam flicked the mangled paperclip onto the floor and picked up his pencil again, his eyes lingering on Dean for a few seconds before his head dropped back down. He kept talking, monotoning in the background, but Dean wasn't listening because the sound of spitting oil and a sudden yelp from the kitchen had him recalling why he was moaning last night, why he hadn't a good night's sleep since... just, since.

That was when he suddenly found he couldn't sit still any more. Not when Sam was talking about the apocalypse, not when Bobby was burning pig over a hot flame, not when engine oil smelt like smoke and the jukebox in the nearest bar was playing _Highway to Hell_ over and over and over again.

"Bobby, what's your favorite cheese?" Dean asked when he got back from the dingy beer pit down the road, very drunk but only slightly swaying.

"Sit down before you fall down, dumb ass."

He found an empty armchair and fell into it.

"Sammy?"

"I think we got more important things to worry about than cheese here, Dean."

Sam threw a book across the room - a small one - and it landed in his brother's lap. Dean didn't even want to read the title. He closed his eyes in alcohol induced weariness and straight away knew it was a bad idea. Everything red and spinning and lonely.

Eyes snapped back open and looked around. If he could get far away from here, far away from where someone first said apocalypse, maybe he would stop seeing it.

"Let's hit the road, Sam. Come on, let's go." Dean got to his unsteady feet, heard Bobby sigh. He stumbled over to Sam and grasped his brother loosely by his shirt sleeve.

"Dean." That's all he said. Shook his arm free.

Dean sat back down, defeated. "What do you want me to do, Sammy? Just sit here-" his arms flopped out over the sides of the chair, "-and wait for that damn angel to come back?"

"You could read the damn book, Dean." And a gentler afterthought: "Or get some sleep."

Dean drummed his fingers on the chair's faded arms. The last thing he wanted to do was sleep. What he needed was something to do, people to save, god and the devil back in fairy tales. Something he could kill with rocksalt.

He stood up again. "Lemmee have your laptop."

Sam's hand was resting on the computer in an instant, guarding it. Or guarding Dean from it, which pissed him off more. They locked eyes for a few seconds.

"All right." Sam relinquished control.

Dean slammed the door.

He woke up two hours later at the kitchen table with his forehead stuck to the keyboard. His mouth tasted of bad breath and stale beer. _Well, that's one way to get some decent sleep_, he thought, as he peeled himself off the computer. Allowed his eyes to focus and started typing despite the throbbing in his head.

Ten minutes later: bingo. He picked up his cell phone.

Sam was still working when Dean dropped the open computer onto the book he was reading.

"Dean! Careful!"

"School in Ingsburg, Colorado. Two unexplained fires in a week. One in a locker room, one in the canteen."

"You think we should stop researching the apocalypse to chase after school kids playing at arson?"

"Not kids, Sammy. Fire investigators are stumped." Dean moved around to lean over Sam's shoulder and tapped a few times on the mousepad. He thought he heard a sharp intake of breath when he touched the screen with his finger. "They haven't been able to find a cause for either of the fires. It's like the air just spontaneously combusted."

Sam squinted at the computer screen, wiped it with his cuff. "It doesn't say that here, Dean."

"No, but it's true. It's also true that witnesses said they saw a boy in the canteen-"

Sam feigned horror. "A boy? In a school?"

"-who just disappeared into thin air." Sam rolled his eyes. "And one witness came right out and said he saw a ghost."

"Sounds pretty compelling, Sam." Bobby spoke from across the room.

Sam sounded less convinced. "What's your source, Dean? Don't tell me you hacked into the police servers."

"I got a friend who's a cop a couple of towns over from there. I called him."

"Hunter?" Bobby again.

"No, just a cop who knows what we do."

Sam closed the computer. "You're sick, Dean. You know I know you're sick because you didn't deny it-"

"Just a bad cold, Sam." They locked eyes again, but Dean quickly looked away because he knew Sam was getting better at this game. "What if I told you an angel said we had to go? That pyromaniac spirits is the 17th seal and if this spirit gets to light one more fire, Lucifer's little pinky will be poking up your ass?"

"I might have believed you. But you gotta get your timing right, Dude."

Dean took the deepest breath he could manage. He was beginning to think he might have to tell Sam the truth, that he couldn't stay here because staying here meant staying still, and when he was still he remembered. _What do you remember, Dean?_ But Bobby saved him.

"I got the research covered, Sam."

Sam's shoulders relaxed.

"Will you two eejits please just get out of here? Dean's fidgeting is driving me crazy. I'll call you if I find anything new."

So Sam gave in, after he held out for long enough to let Dean know that he wasn't in charge anymore. Went on Bobby's say so, not his. But Dean didn't care about that right now, not as long as they were getting out of here. He wound the Imapla's windows right down and turned the music right up.

"Dean, it's freezing! And I like my eardrums!"

But Dean didn't answer, because Sammy and the music sounded far away, and every time he blinked he saw.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**A/N**: Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed the first chapter of this story, you're all fab :-) I think I replied to you all, sorry if I missed anyone. I'm truly humbled by your kind words. This is a short chapter, more to come I promise.

SnSnSnSnSnSnSnSnSnS

Stevie Shapiro seemed even younger than Dean remembered him from four years ago, from the hot night when he had saved the fresh-faced rookie from a vase-loving poltergeist. Kid had cried on the lawn afterwards, on his knees, begging Dean to tell him everything when really he must have wished he still knew nothing. Sam's hand futile on his shoulder.

Yeah, definitely too young to be sitting on a park bench with him and Sam all serious and policeman-like and loaded with stolen information.

The young cop was perched between the two brothers in his pristine uniform, looking for all the world like a kid playing dress-up - except for the thin, business-like folder protruding from under his arm.

He handed Dean a pile of papers and spoke all deep-voiced: "Here's what we know."

Dean made a show of leafing through the sheets with interest. One, two, three, four white pages of text and dates, a photograph of a burnt table, smoke stains on walls.

Only a show, because his head had been pounding for the last hour, ever since they'd arrived in this painfully suburban town. Ever since the distracting parade of scenery passing the car window, the snap of something new every second, had been replaced with slow-moving streets and crimson red traffic signals.

Now trying to read was only making his headache worse. The images blurred, text brightened and dimmed. Sledgehammer. He reached across Stevie and passed the information to Sam, who leaned right forward to glare at him before snatching the pages away.

"Fine, Dean. I'll read them." And quieter, so quiet that maybe Dean wasn't meant to hear: "As usual."

After a few moments of silence except for rustling papers, Stevie unwittingly leapt to Dean's defence. "There's nothing in there I didn't tell Dean over the 'phone." He paused while two mothers with pushchairs walked by. "Two fires, no identifiable seats. Kids seeing things." Whispered for the benefit of a boy who came running over after a soccer ball: "A ghost."

"The usual." That was the longest sentence Dean could manage right now. He started coughing, an irritated, dry cough. Just waiting to turn into something worse. He rubbed his throat.

Sam took over. "So, what's our way in?"

"Here." Stevie reached into his back pocket and a fake ID landed in Dean's lap. When he opened it, he groaned. A loud, sick groan.

"Feds?" Sam asked increduously. Out of the corner of his eye Dean could see his brother leaning back in the bench as he spoke. Casting an eye in his direction.

"Best I could do, guys," Stevie apologised.

"All right," Dean croaked, heart thumping.

Because it wasn't, not really. Feds meant suits, suits meant a damn tie. As if he wasn't suffocating enough already.

--------------------

Half an hour later they were in a tux shop surrounded by grooms to be and bored kids. The place was packed. Children screamed.

When a pretty sales assistant raised her eyebrows at them from over a tall guy's shoulder, Sam was negotiating his way towards her before Dean even had chance to put a restraining hand on his brother's arm, before he could find that presumptuous wink. _Let me, Sam_. He saw the girl smile widely and turned away. Looked like his brother had got it covered.

He collapsed into a hard chair and waited, fingers drumming against his thighs, loud hum of voices pulsating in his ears.

Sam returned a few long minutes later with a black suit on a hanger, matching tie strung around its neck. The younger Winchester was already dressed like a Blues Brothers reject.

"Put this on, Dean." No please, no thank you.

Book withdrawal.

Dean stretched back in the chair, feet becoming a trip hazard. Calves invisibly clenched. He flopped his head to the side and sniffed heavily. "Ugh." Waited for a sudden wave of nausea to subside.

"Dean, this god damn hunt was your idea. If you're too sick to do it, why are we here? I'm gonna call Bobby-"

Sam was half-turned away before Dean spoke. "No, no, Sam. Here, give me it." Quieter: "I'm ok." Got to his feet and headed for the changing rooms in semi-blindness as a head rush overtook him.

-------------------

The white collar was tight around his neck, the tailored sleeves restrictive. The tie was going to strangle him. Oh, and he looked like a funeral director. Dean stood in front of the full-length mirror and adjusted and readjusted. Loosened the noose. Sweat was building under the collar already. _God, is it hot in here?_

Then, in the clear reflection, bright flames flashed orange behind him. He spun, nothing there except an empty wall.

When he looked back his face in the mirror was bloody and skinless.

And then now again. His heart pounded, sweat pouring down his back, and he bolted, elbowed some poor woman in his hurry to get to the door.

Outside he sucked in huge gulps of the cool air, hands down on his thighs, gasping. Added burning orange fire to the list of things he was trying not to remember. _Shit._

He breathed hard for minutes. When Sam found him he was just about upright, leaning against the wall. He faked a yawn.

"Geez Dean, can't you stay still just for a minute?"

"Only when I'm dead, Sammy," he replied, smile quickly flashed.

Sam dropped his head and walked away to the car without responding. Dean took in a long swig of air and followed his brother's long strides.

Thinking with each step _Let's go back to Bobby's, Sammy. Maybe this hunt wasn't such a good idea._ The sight of his brother's back, the shape of his brother leaving him behind, making sure he never quite managed to say it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The school corridors were long and empty. Two pairs of feet echoed discordantly on the hard floor.

"This way, Dean," Sam instructed, taking an unexpected sharp turn.

Dean nearly fell into the wall, righting himself with a flat palm on the whitewashed brick.

"Fuck," he whispered, biting his lip. Blaming the uneasy feeling in his stomach on a sudden influx of high school memories.

One memory in particular.

Meredith High School, 1993. _How old was I? Fourteen? _After a slow start Dean had ended up in the Principal's office every day for a week. Screamed at, belittled, humiliated and, on the last occasion, punched in the stomach. Yeah, the punch had given it away. Demon in a teacher-shaped meat suit had tried to strangle him, and damn nearly succeeded.

Dean shook his head as he remembered the fingers tight around his throat, the dull, startling pain as his skull had smacked into the wall. Shook the memory away with ease. _If only it was always that easy_.

He regained his footing and caught up with Sam, the muscles in his legs locked tight as he walked.

When his hand suddenly moved to his stomach, he swore, louder than he had intended. His body reminded him that there was another other reason his limbs felt like rubber right now. A flu-induced cramp assaulted his stomach like a ring-laden fist.

"You up to this, Dean?" Sam asked, concern in his voice.

Dean held his breath as his gut tightened, a fleeting thought rising along with the spasm in his belly: _funny how some types of pain are easier to deal with than others_.

He let the breath go and stood up straight. Nodded.

Sam stood still for a moment, lips pursed, like he was contemplating something. Like he might say something. Then he stepped up to knock three times on the door with a shiny brass _Principal_ plaque, and Dean mentally located the knife tucked into his sock. Because you never could tell what was waiting on the other side.

Seconds passed and no one answered.

Dean looked around and spied a couple of empty chairs. He moved to sit in one, to give his aching legs some relief while they waited. But Sam just opened the door and walked right in.

--------------------

The room's only occupant was a young dark-haired man, apparently not much older than Dean, who sat at the leather-topped desk at the back of the room, one hand pressing a phone to his ear, the other playing with the blind behind him. Peering through its slats.

The office that surrounded him was big and old fashioned, full of oak furniture and oil paintings that were incongruous with the rest of the school. The yard peaking through on the other side of the blind was modern and concrete.

Dean's eyes wandered. A plaster of Paris David stood, armless and naked, on a thin wooden shelf above a radiator. Someone's remnants of another life.

"Well, Mrs Brannigan," the man said to someone on the other end of the telephone, "I know that Amy has been under a lot of strain this year, but her grandmother's death was over three months ago now-"

When he saw Sam and Dean he scowled slightly, swiveled on his seat and moved the blind-fiddling hand into the air to gesture at them. A _stay there and do not move_ gesture. "Mrs Brannigan, we will have to resume our conversation at a mutually agreeable time. I'm afraid I have a meeting to attend."

The phone was placed back in its receiver.

"I heard you knocking, gentlemen. When you don't get an answer, the done thing is to take a seat and wait."

Dean wanted to say I told you so, restrained himself with a painful gulp before he realized he never had. When Sam stepped forward and flashed his ID, he did the same. Quickly, so no one would see that his hand was shaking. _When did I start shaking?_

"I'm Principal Weaver." The scowl gave way to reveal a wide, fake smile. "Take a seat gentlemen. Officer Shapiro told me to expect you, but I trust this won't take long. I do have classes to teach."

Sam took the one seat already opposite the Principal's desk, legs scraping on the wooden floor as he sat down. Dean dragged one over from the side of the room while Sam started without him.

"Very nice to meet you, Principal Weaver," Sam smiled back. _Over the top, Sammy_, thought Dean, as he planted his backside on the most uncomfortable chair in the room. _Don't play too nice_. "We're investigating the fires you've had in the school recently. What can you tell us?"

The Principal leant back in his padded leather seat and pressed his fingers together under his chin. "I've already spoken to the police about this." Leaned forwards. "Why on earth would the FBI be interested?"

Dean was thinking the same as he pulled at his tie.

"Humor us, Mr Weaver," Sam continued. "We have information that there are strange circumstances surrounding these fires."

The smile got wider. "You're not interested in that load of nonsense, surely? Disappearing arsonists. People don't just disappear into thin air."

Dean wondered why the air was always thin when people disappeared.

"I was talking about the fire investigation reports." Sam responded, moving his chair in closer to the desk. "But, do tell us about that."

The smile disappeared slowly and calculatedly, as if Principal Weaver was hoping that he could make its sudden absence go unnoticed. "Well, it's nonsense, obviously. Just some kids trying to deflect attention from themselves. I've no proof, of course." Both hands clenching the desk.

The young pretender was on his back foot, and Dean's clenched muscles relaxed slightly. "We want to talk to them," he contributed, short and sweet. Followed it up with a throaty cough.

"What, the pupils who are claiming that they saw a boy disappear into thin air?" Weaver looked from Sam to Dean and back again. "One of them claimed it was a ghost, for Christ's sake!"

Sam was firm. "But, as you clearly suspect, they may be the ones who started the fires."

Weaver raised his voice a little louder. "They were already interviewed by the police. They didn't learn anything from them. I refuse to subject-"

"It's not a request, Mr Weaver." Sam was being a badass. Dean counted thirteen seconds of silence.

"Very well." Weaver picked up the phone, and dialed.

--------------------

The first kid, a teenage girl in a sloppy t-shirt, was in tears before she even sat down. Sam had arranged some chairs in a rough circle, reluctantly placing one for the Principal, who seemed determined to stay.

"You're not in any trouble, Tanya," Sam soothed, looking around the circle to make sure everyone else knew the game he was playing. Except Dean knew it wasn't a game, just Sam trying to comfort a scared girl. "We just want to know what you saw."

"Nothin'. I didn't see nothin'." The kid looked ready to jump up and run for the door. Her hands were ringing in her lap. Snot ran into her mouth. She and Dean sniffed in tandem.

"You told the police that you saw a boy where the fire started." Sam carried on, his voice soft.

More sniffing. "I did, but no-one believes me." Looking up at the Principal while she wiped her nose with a tissue yanked out of her jeans pocket.

Dean chipped in in a deep, growling voice. "Did you start the fire, Tanya? Either of them?"

For Weaver's benefit.

"No!" The kid's eyes were wide and honest. She bowed her head and shook it slowly. "No." Again: "No." Getting quieter each time. "No." Then just the sound of a girl trying to stop crying.

Sam asked the crucial question: "Tanya, did you recognize the boy you saw?"

"No, never seen him before," she sobbed. "He was just some... some skinny little kid."

"What did he look like?"

"Nothin' really. Borin' lookin'."

"Hair color, eye color?"

The girl shook her head and pursed her lips. "Nope, don't remember."

Sam put his hand on the girl's thigh, which Dean could never have pulled off without it being deemed inappropriate. "Great, Tanya, you've been a real help."

Second kid, Daniel, was even less help than the first. Seemed to think he was in a movie, playing the wisecracking genius who never gave a straight answer. Saying things like, "What do you think I saw, agents?" Dean wanted to shake his hand and then kill him.

Third kid, Mike, he was the one they really wanted. The one who had said the word _ghost_. He sat, timid, looking at the floor. Shoulders turning away from Weaver.

"Principal Weaver, I wonder if we could talk to Mike alone," Sam said.

Weaver shook his head. "I don't think that's a good idea, gentlemen. If his parents found out-"

"That wasn't a request." Dean this time, voice getting weaker by the minute. Gave the guy his best mean look to make up for it.

After a pause, Weaver stood up, put his jacket on, rearranged the papers on his desk. All very deliberate, all very slow. "Very well," he said, making sure he made eye contact with everyone in the room one by one, but saving the longest look for Mike. He closed the door gently on his way out.

Sam moved his chair around a little so he was facing the boy. "You know why we're here, Mike?" The boy nodded. "Okay. When the fire in the canteen started, tell us what you saw."

Quiet.

"You saw a boy, right? A boy where the fire started."

Mike nodded again.

"Was there anything unusual about him?" Sam asked, trying to avoid putting words in the kid's mouth.

Silence. Dean could only hear his own stuffed up breathing.

"Mike?" Sam tried again.

The boy's voice was so quiet. "He was a ghost."

"How do you know he was a ghost?" Sam probed, eyes meeting Dean's for a split second. "Was he... translucent?"

Dean leant in closer. "Did he, uh, shimmer at all?"

The boy looked up, eyes moving from one brother to the other. Filled with wonder that they weren't telling him he was a liar. Then, a second later, frowning like he thought they were stupid.

"I know it was a ghost because it was Tim Wilkins." Raised eyebrows asked the question. "Tim died two weeks ago."

Sam and Dean exchanged glances. "How did he die?" they asked in unison.

"Hit by a car, outside the school. Everyone thought it was an accident."

The air was pregnant as they waited for the approaching _but_. Mike seemed on the verge of tears. His lips parted.

The door flung open and Principal Weaver came barreling in. "Times up, boys." He actually clapped his hands. Dean wondered if he'd been listening at the door.

"We weren't quite finished yet, Principal Weaver," Sam stated calmly.

"I'm afraid Mike here has classes to go to. He has an important test today."

Dean caught the look of surprise, horror, and then understanding that flashed across the poor kid's face.

The boy stood up and headed for the door, bag slung over his shoulder. Sam called after him, "No, Mike, wait-" But he was already gone, the door swinging to behind him. More afraid of his Principal than the FBI. Cute.

"Mike was just telling us about the boy who died here a couple of weeks ago," Sam stated, the volume of his voice rising.

Weaver just stood there with his arms folded. "Yes, there was a tragic accident in the road out front there. But that has nothing to do with these fires."

"Of course not." Dean reassured him. "It is tragic, though, isn't it?"

-----------------------------

"Bastard." Dean whispered. "Kid had something else to tell us."

Sam swung open the main door and they emerged into daylight. "Might have been nothing."

Side by side in their matching funeral suits, they walked down the wide concrete steps towards the parking lot. Dean was already loosening his tie.

"I'm going to go to the coroner's office," Sam told him. "I'll see what I can find out about Tim Wilkins' death. It's only three blocks over." He waved in some general direction or other. "I'll find out where he's buried."

Dean's heart started racing again. "We're not salting and burning a kid, dude."

"Why not?" Sam asked innocently, as if he'd just suggested something completely normal. Hell, _before_, Dean might have thought it was completely normal. But right now, the very thought of it was making him want to throw up. Or maybe he could blame that on this nasty 'flu. Another set of spasms began to churn his stomach.

"Because."

"Dean-"

Dean stopped at the bottom of the steps, thought about it for a second, trying to turn a gut feeling into words for his brother. "I'm not burning some poor kid's grave, Sam. Not if we don't have to. That kid has a mother."

"Okay." _Okay_. "But Dean, our only alternative right now is to try and find Tim and talk to him."

"Sure, that sounds good." _Better_.

"And we can't do that until later, when the school is closed. Preferably after dark. So I'm going to go to the coroner's office and see what I can find out. And if I can find out where he's buried, then I'm gonna. We'll only do it as a last resort, okay? Dean, if this thing starts killing people-"

"All right, Sammy. All right. You go and do that and I'm gonna find me a nice bar." _Get really drunk so I don't have to think about burning children_. Dean's stomach lurched.

Sam's hands were on his hips. "Fine. I'll meet you back at the car in three hours." Dean didn't respond. "Three hours, Dean."

"Sure."

When Sam had gone, the back of his black-suited form getting smaller in the distance and then disappearing out of sight around a corner, Dean turned and threw up in a bush. Wiped his mouth on his sleeve. _Okay, no bars then_. Stumbled across the parking lot.

He sat in the Impala for seven minutes before it got too hot in there. Even with the windows down it felt like he couldn't breathe. So alone, so much time to think. He slammed the door (thought: sorry, baby) and walked, just kept moving.

And when he felt like his legs were about to collapse under him, he found a bench to lie on and closed his eyes. Stuffed the vomit smelling jacket under his head. Hummed Metallica. Focused on the sound of the footsteps walking by.

Didn't fall asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**A/N**: I didn't really like the last chapter of this story despite spending days fiddling with it. But what kind reviews I've had anyway! Thanks again guys :-) Anyhoo, here's a chapter I do like, hope you do too.

SnSnSnSnSnSnSnSnS

When Sam arrived back at the school parking lot with a scrawled piece of paper folded neatly in his pocket, Dean was nowhere to be found. Not asleep in the Impala, not sitting nonchalantly on its hood, not sat on the school steps chatting up a pretty senior. Not in any of the nearby places Sam might have expected to find his drunk brother.

_Drunk. Shit._

_Dean's probably wasted_, he thought. _Probably still nursing his fourth Jack Daniels in whatever dodgy bar he's managed to find in this dull, dull town_. Sam leant against the car door, took out his cell, speed dial number two. Pulled his jacket tight around him.

The noise in the background when Dean picked up was not what Sam was expecting. No clink of glasses or low drunken murmurs, bartender asking if his brother wanted another one, _buddy_. Just, nothing. Dean breathing. The same cold wind that circled around Sam magnified ten times over in his ear.

It seemed an age before Dean spoke. "I'm sorry, Sam," he croaked, his voice wavering and cracking. _Bad reception?_

"Where are you? You're half an hour late, man." Trying not to sound concerned.

"Uh, just... uh." Sam could hear his brother moving around, mumbling. "Huh. I'll be there in a minute, okay?"

"Okay." Phone flipped shut. Heart beating a little faster.

Sam got in the driver's seat and waited, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel. Glanced at his watch and realized only five minutes had passed.

Dusk gave way to night.

When he came, at last, his wavering figure lingered at the driver's door for a few seconds, deliberating. Slowly moved around the back, hand skirting the edge of the car. He opened the passenger door and got in, slumped back against the seat.

Sam scanned his brother up and down. His jacket was crumpled, tie nowhere to be seen. Face pale and drawn, eyes closing and opening slowly, red-rimmed. And god, what was that smell? Puke?

"Dean? You okay?" He leaned in close to his brother, hoping to catch a smell of alcohol on his breath. Felt it in the pit of his stomach when he couldn't detect any. "God, Dean, you're pretty sick."

Dean shook his head. "I can do this, okay, Sammy?" Voice slowly breaking. "Just let me do this." But not _I'm fine, Sam_. Hadn't said that for a while. Dean's hands clenched tightly at his sides, his shoulders trembling.

Sam started the engine. "Dean, you're shivering. I'm taking you back to the motel." Dean reached over and fumbled at his door, swung it wide open so that Sam wouldn't drive away. _Neat trick_. "Close the door Dean, before I have to come round there and put the child lock on." Half tempted to put his foot on the accelerator and rev the engine.

"Child lock? Don't insult my car, dude." Dean turned to face Sam, eyes dark and earnest. "It was cold out. I was just walking, Sammy. Didn't even go to a bar."

_That's what scares me_, thought Sam.

Dean tried to disguise his raspy voice by talking louder, deeper: "Just tell me what you found."

When Sam reached his hand over to Dean's forehead, it got swatted away by faster reflexes than he figured his brother had right now. That eased the feeling in his stomach a little. Still kept the engine running.

"Tim Wilkins, hit by a car outside the school on September 17th. Died instantly of blunt force trauma to the head. Hit the road hard, I guess."

"Okay." Dean wheezed. "Anything else?"

"Not really." A pause while Sam wondered whether to say it. "He's, uh, he's buried in the municipal cemetery on the edge of town."

Dean didn't answer. Sam saw him nod almost imperceptibly.

Deep breath before Dean nodded towards the looming school building and said, "Let's go in then."

Sam shook his head. "No way, Dean. I can do this alone." _Without my sick brother beside me, looking as weak as he does now. Pale, dead_.

"I don't want you to do it alone." Dean exhaled hard. "I want us to do it together. I want us to save people, Sammy. Like we used to."

"We can do it together another time, Dean."

_God, is Dean crying?_

"I have to save someone, Sammy." Lips pursed tight together, tear glistening on his chin. "This kid," he half-sobbed, "this kid is going to go to hell if we don't do something now." Said _hell_ in the same hard but half-whispered way another person might say cancer, rape, grief.

Like that, a switch flipped. _Hell_ . Sam couldn't argue with hell, couldn't pretend to even know how his brother felt any more. Couldn't know how to help someone who had been through that except to trust that his brother knew what he needed.

Sam reached into his footwell and grabbed a bottle of Coke, threw it at Dean. "We can wait an hour."

Dean shut the door. "Half an hour." He attempted to down the Coke in one and had to give up half way through. Belched loudly, breathed hard. Turned the radio on and sipped the rest.

---------------------------------------

Dean had a shotgun loaded with rock salt in one hand, homemade EMF meter in the other. Even when he was sick, hands trembling, he knew he could fire that gun with one hand if he needed to.

The flashlight in Sam's grip swept the dark corridors as they went, brought sudden illuminated snatches of doorways, skirting boards, fire extinguishers. Sliced across a bright mural of birds and butterflies.

Dean kept his eye on the green and red lights of the EMF meter, listened to its quiet drone. Nothing so far.

Sam was ahead around a corner when he whispered, "Dean." Murky light wavering out of sight. When he came into view he was standing in front of a window, flashlight pointed to the floor, then flicked off. His face was illuminated orange in the darkness. Dean grasped his gun tighter, switched off the whining EMF meter and tucked it into the back of his pants. Light-footed on his way to Sam's side.

The window overlooked a central yard. In the middle of the yard a tall tree burned. Really burned. Flames licked up its trunk, branches spat and flickered. Under its boughs a small shadow, a boy.

"Call the fire department?" Dean whispered.

"No, not close enough. Not yet."

Suddenly, a door next to the window swung open, letting in a blast of smoky air. The smell of wood burning, the loud roar of flames. Made a change from all those doors that usually slammed in their faces.

Sam took a side step so he was right in front of the opening. He paused to put the flashlight away, then stepped out into the yard. Dean went after him, watching his back. Smoke made him cough, hard.

They moved forward slowly, Dean taking a few steps at double-time so that he was at his brother's side. The fire crackled and rose, the air around it hot and moving. Everything burned. Dean looked at his hands, half-expecting to see them blistering, skin bubbling. Almost could.

The boy was sobbing, louder and sharper as they neared, a child's unbounded cries that ebbed and flowed.

But Dean realized he could hear screams too, loud then quiet, raging then soft. When they were loud and clear, shrieking, he could tell they weren't real, weren't now, because he remembered when they were. He tried to shut them out, focused on the white tears that poured down the dead boy's face.

They stopped about three meters away from Tim's hazy form, as close as the heat from the raging fire would allow. Dean felt the first beads of sweat forming on his forehead, on the back of his neck, under his lip.

"What's wrong, Tim?" Sam's voice was gentle, coaxing.

But Tim just kept on crying. Tears sparkled in the umber light. Then Dean could see a bruise on the kid's face, dark and purple. Fist-shaped.

"Who hit you?" he asked, suddenly angry.

The spirit paused for a moment, stopped crying, flickered. Stern-voiced: "Everyone."

The dark eye-sockets expanded, pupils glowed. Jaw opened, forehead pulsated in pure rage. The childish shape burst into flames, rushed at Dean in a misshapen fireball, and knocked him winded to the ground. On his back, gun clattering out of his hand.

He gasped for air, his chest burning. A gunshot sounded above him. He felt hands on him, groping him. Pain leapt from his shoulder to his fingertips.

For a second he saw his brother's face looming over him, and then the face was bloody and skinless, and his. Loud screams echoed in his ears. Then Sam again, shaking him.

"Dean, are you ok? Shit Dean, you're sweating like a pig."

Dean rolled onto his side, wiped sweat and tears away with his sleeve. Couldn't speak.

"You were really out of it for a second there, Dean." Sam's turn to sound shaky. "God, you looked terrified, like you were hallucinating or something. What did you see?"

Dean wiped a hand roughly over his face and carefully avoided the question. "Musta hit my head."

"No, I don't think so, Dean." Sam's curled fingers hovered at Dean's cheek for a second, not quite touching. "Dean, what-"

The question stopped dead, and all Dean could hear was the creak of burning branches and his brother breathing hard. When he looked into Sam's eyes they were sparkling, wet.

Sam's adam's apple bobbed a few times before he spoke again. "I think you have a fever," he murmured. Dean had no strength to swat away the hand this time as it landed gently on his forehead. The hand lingered, rested, then slowly lifted away. A loud sigh. "Come on, let's get out of here before he comes back."

Dean grunted as Sam manhandled him to his feet, strong hands not letting him go. "You ok? Need a hand getting to the car?"

Dean nodded reluctantly, pulling at the threads of his burnt shirt. Let Sam take his weight as they staggered through empty halls.

In the safety of the Impala he finally managed to ask, "What now, Sam?"

But Sam didn't answer, just looked at Dean for a long, silent time, then started the engine and drove.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**A/N:** Thanks again for all the lovely reviews guys, you're the best. I'm so happy people are liking my first ever fic. This chapter is short, but perfectly formed ;-) Enjoy!

SnSnSnSnSnSnSnSn

Dean was waiting in the Impala, as instructed, trying hard to keep his eyes open in the biting gloom. Through the fluttering slits of his eyes he focused, caught glimpses of the spider-like shadows of trees as they crept over silver gravestones.

_Just a quick detour on the way back to the motel_, Sam had said. Dean had known what he meant without asking, and didn't argue. Didn't have the strength to. Couldn't, when the dead kid in question had just tried to kill him.

God, he wanted to throw up. He leant forward in the seat and wrapped his arms around his stomach, forehead lightly resting on the dashboard. Drops of rain began to bounce off the windshield.

When he heard a scream, low and angry, all his senses snapped at once.

_Sam_.

Dean flung open the door and staggered out into the muddy gravel path, expletives willing his feet to move in the general direction of the sudden cry. _Shit, which way?_

He stumbled forward a few steps before he remembered he needed his gun. Hands slipped on the wet trunk, fumbled, nearly fell when it sprung open. He grabbed his favorite shotgun, solid and heavy.

With the weapon in his hand he was stronger, steadier. His feet regained some purchase on the slick ground, abandoned the pathway to run across grass that shone in the moonlight. He slipped around graves, bruised his hip on headstones, ran where his gut pulled him.

"Sam! Sammy!"

The silence was long, too long. The rain was heavier now, pouring into Dean's eyes, his hair slick against his forehead. Then a voice penetrated the darkness: "I'm all right, Dean. Go back to the car!" But Dean didn't believe him, not when he couldn't see him.

He followed the arch of his brother's call, feet sloshing through the sodden ground, water in his shoes. Hand frozen to his gun. Peered through darkness in all directions.

Finally, he glimpsed a glistening head of hair poking out of a grave, dirt flying over it from the end of a silhouetted spade. In the dim light strong arms threw the shovel onto the grass, and Sam clambered out after it, wiping his hands on his thighs. Panting. He stooped to pick up a bag of salt and began pouring it over the splintered coffin.

"What happened, Sam?" Dean shouted over the rain.

Sam turned, startled, last remains of the salt spilled onto the grass. "Dean? What the hell are you doing here? I told you to go back to the car." His wet clothes clung tightly to his skin.

Dean breathed hard between each word. "Tell.. me... what... happened." A longer breath drawn in, and out, in again. "Are you... okay?"

Pause. "Nothing happened, Dean. I found the grave, dug it up, poured salt into it, you turned up." Sam walked towards him, frowning.

Dean rasped hesitantly, "But, I heard... heard you scream."

"Not me, Dean." Sam shone the flashlight in his face. "You all right?"

Dean raised his arm to his eyes until the light was taken away. Didn't answer, just stood there, chest heaving.

"Please go back to the car Dean," Sam pleaded. "You look like you're about to fall down."

Dean ignored the request. He turned his back and walked over to pick up the gas canister from the ground, approached the edge of the pit and started pouring. The sound of liquid falling, splashing, more insistent than the rain.

"No, we can-" he paused to cough, "-do this together." Last dregs of fuel dripped into the hole. "I'm not... useless." He spat the last word out hard. Then he threw the empty canister into the grave and waited for Sam to light the match. Watched him throw it in.

Job done. Tim Wilkins, age twelve, salted and burned.

Sam shielded his face from the flames and took a few steps backwards.

Dean just stared.

And, standing in the fire-emblazoned blackness, realized. Laughed a little, because it was funny, wasn't it? How he had been drawn towards reenactments of the very things he was trying to forget, lurched away from one bad memory into another, and another. Life mirroring death.

The flames engulfed everything. The air, the oxygen, his feelings, thoughts. Grass scorched. He felt the fire's heat, its burning heat, in the pit of his soul. Aware of Sam's hand on his shoulder, trying to pull him away from the edge. Gentle, not hard or overpowering. His eyes burned and watered. Staring into the fiery abyss.

He threw up when he saw Tim's bones poking out of the pyre.

"Shit, Dean, why don't you listen to me?" On his knees in the wet grass, retching. Hand rubbing his back. "Come on, let's get you to bed." First time he'd thrown up in front of Sam without being drunk since he was twelve.

They were half way to the car before he managed the wisecrack reply: "I don't swing that way, dude."

**TBC**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**A/N:** So, when I was writing this chapter I had a different idea for how Dean got the handprint on his shoulder. It just popped into my head and I went along with it. Not crucial to the plot but I kinda like how it played out.... Aside from that this chapter's nice and long and has some pretty h/c :-)

SnSnSnSnSnSnSnSnSnS

The first thing Dean was aware of was the sound of Sam's voice, low and whispered. "Yeah, Bobby, we salted and burned the bones. Grave desecration's been on the news already, local rags are blaming some satanic cult." Then near-silence, the whir of a ceiling fan, the muffled sound of a door slamming far away.

Dean was lying on his back on a bed, eyes shut, gentle haze lifting. Sounds slipped softly through, senses began to converge. He felt his legs tangled in the thin motel sheets, his body heat soaking into a damp mattress under him. Then the realization that every inch of him ached, even the hairs on his arms. The sensitive spot between his shoulder blades. He didn't move while Sam carried on talking.

"Yeah, I know. We woulda been out of here ages ago but Dean's pretty sick. He's been in and out of it for about eighteen hours now." Followed by a weary sigh.

_Eighteen hours?_ No wonder he felt like shit. He moved his hand to his stomach and felt the sweat slick on his skin. Fingers trembled against him.

Sam seemed to hesitate before continuing. "There's something else going on with him, Bobby." Voice shaking.

Dean moaned gently then, took a few painful gulps before he managed to whisper, "Sam."

The murmurs and hums of conversation faded away. Phone dropped onto a hard surface somewhere, footsteps padding across the floor. A heavy weight displaced the mattress. Dean's ankle felt a hand gently grasp it.

"Dean?"

"Mmmm," was all he managed at first. He cleared his throat and added, "Hey, Sammy." Eyes still firmly shut.

"Can you open your mouth for me, Dean? I want to take your temperature."

Dean's hand flailed around his forehead, throwing off the damp washcloth whose presence he had just noticed. He parted his lips just enough for the cold metal tip to slide into his mouth. Sam's hand shook his ankle rhythmically while they waited, a kid clumsily rocking a cradle. The thermometer beeped, slid out from under his tongue.

Sam exhaled harshly. "101.4," he said. "Better."

"Better?"

"It was 103 a few hours ago, I thought I might have to take you to the emergency room. Nearly did."

Dean rolled onto his side, regretted the movement when the hand let go. "Bad, huh?"

"Yeah, Dean, pretty bad. You don't remember? You were hallucinating again."

Dean licked his lips. "Pink elephants with purple spots," he whispered, and saw them. But other things were threatening to bleed through from behind, and it was an effort to keep them out.

Images appeared one by one, blurring into each other as his mind swam from one thought to the next, always changing, never still. _Butterscotch and candy canes, Ferris wheels and neon lights, a 1972 Chevy Chevelle in Mulsanne blue, white stripes on the hood. Green traffic signals, Sam's favorite hoodie_. Anything else he could think of that wasn't among the things he was trying to forget.

The weight lifted itself from the end of the bed.

_Hot girl with big hooters, cheap beer, the price of gas, a dirty motel, Dirty Dancing, Back to the Future, popcorn, hot apple pie, a bacon sandwich, Mom, Mom's gentle face, Mom burning_. He screwed up his eyes tight. _Pink elephants, pink elephants, pink elephants._

He breathed deep, as deep as he could, and the warm air smelt of mould and vapor rub.

"I'm heading out to get supplies." Sam said, the sound of his coat being zipped. "I'm going to get you some Gatorade, Tylenol. You want anything else?"

"I'm not in pain, Sam," Dean lied, the sudden image of a pink elephant slurping Gatorade through its trunk fading into dead faces with open mouths.

"Well, just Gatorade then. I'll be back soon, ok? You want anything else?"

"I'm fine, Sam."

_There, said it._ Sam must have known he was lying, must have, but when Dean finally had the energy to open his eyes his brother was half-smiling anyway. It looked good on the kid. "You know, I'm kinda hungry," he wheezed. "Why don't you get me that pie?"

Sam really smiled at that.

--------------------

When the door closed behind his brother Dean turned onto his stomach and sank deeper into the bed. His head pounded and his gut clenched. The Impala roared into the distance.

It seemed like only a few seconds had passed when heavy wings flapped somewhere in the room, air moving and brushing over Dean's hot skin. He flipped himself over with a groan, pushed himself up onto his elbows, squinting. And there, standing in front of the shabby door that Sam had just locked, was an angel of the lord. His arms were folded, his stare dark and brooding.

"Don't you dare tell me you've got work for me, Castiel," Dean groused. "I'm sick."

He raised himself higher on his pillow and watched the contemplation that washed over the angel's face, wandered his eyes over the tall form while he waited for a reply. The long coat was even grubbier than the last time Dean had seen it, its stained fabric littered with rips and tears. _Yeah, definitely not Michael Landon_.

"I know, Dean," Castiel spoke. He took two steps forward, kept his arms crossed.

"Know what? That I'm sick?" _Well, duh._

Castiel didn't answer straight away. He was looking to one side, his head turned. When Dean followed his gaze there was nothing there except a blank wall.

"I know what you remember, Dean," he said finally, unblinking. A long pause, head slowly turning. His eyes buried themselves into Dean's gut. "Those who have seen hell will fight hardest when the time comes," he stated, matter-of-factly. Dean's whole body shuddered. "Nobody wants to meet Lucifer twice." Shuddered again, shook and kept shaking.

He saw them then, at the very centre of the dark that engulfed his mind. Red eyes piercing him. Shriveled hand burning on his shoulder.

Dean gasped, uncontrollable coughs suddenly racking him. He reached clumsily for a half-empty glass of water on the nightstand and missed, knocked it onto the floor. Chest aching as he shakily sucked air into his lungs. Felt like his gut was burning.

Castiel still loomed, unmoving.

The pain inside Dean grew and twisted. When he realized he was crying, tears wetting his hot cheeks, he didn't care. It was manly enough to cry when everything hurt this fucking much.

"Water," he managed to say, one hand still clenching the nightstand, the other reaching for the glass that lay on the floor, cracked but not broken. His pleading eyes met Castiel's but the damned angel was like stone.

He reached further, slipped, landed hard on his face on the rough carpet. His legs trailed behind him on the bed, knees hanging. He used his arms to drag his whole body onto the floor and lay there, gasping.

"By the way, Dean," god's messenger finally hissed, "this little job you've been working? It's not over."

Then he was gone.

Castiel's words didn't take root straight away, didn't mean anything while Dean was clambering onto his hands and knees, trying to get oxygen into his lungs. His vision grayed around the edges while he commanded himself, _Don't pass out, don't pass out_. One arm lifted to hold his stomach, the other trembled under the extra weight.

_Michael Landon wouldn't have left me like this,_ he thought, _Michael Landon would have brought me a hot nurse_. His ears started ringing, dark spots dancing. _Don't pass out, don't let Sammy see you like this_. Could see red in the darkness encroaching.

--------------------

He came to with his cheek pressed into the carpet, saliva pooled at the corner of his mouth.

The blurred shape of a cracked glass sat in the centre of his vision. He stared at it for a few seconds, unable to appreciate the total blankness that had temporarily overcome him. Thinking about nothing else while his eyes followed the thin line that traveled jaggedly around the glass's smooth circumference, like a river on a map or lightening in the sky.

Then a flash: red eyes, glass hitting the floor, water splashing.

Time lurched forwards: Castiel's shadow disappearing while he choked for air. Back again: an angel in front of a locked door. Further back: Sam shutting the door behind him, _I'm fine Sam_, hand on his ankle. _Sam_.

Dean was suddenly wide awake, on his side, looking around the room. Reassuring himself that his brother wasn't here, hadn't seen this.

Then the logic in his brain clicked into place: of course Sam wasn't there, because if he had been Dean would be lying on a bed right now, strong hands on his face, relieved voice coaxing him to _drink_, or _breathe_, or _talk to me_.

A car rumbled into the parking lot and he scrambled for the bed, grasping at the bedclothes, hauling himself onto it even as the sound of the engine turned and faded away. _Thank god_.

Dean just lay there, semi-foetal, breathing hard. Steadier as the minutes passed. Panic receded in favor of coherent thoughts.

Somewhere in the room a clock ticked.

_Where's Sam?_

His stomach clenched and unclenched, nausea rising and fading. Heat pricked on his neck, the concave of his lower back. When he breathed his sinuses were clear, but a gentle tickle forced him to exhale with a cough.

When an unexpected level of boredom crept up on him he welcomed it gladly, reached for the remote and turned the tv on. Blew his nose on the duvet before wrapping it tightly around him.

The television screen was bright and quick, and Dean didn't know why he hadn't thought of it before. One thing, another, another, always different, always moving. He flicked away from kids building a rocket out of sand to a woman cooking baked alaska. A black and white cowboy movie. _Diagnosis Murder_. A tanned guy with clean hair selling electric toothbrushes.

He stumbled into a news channel without thinking, mouth open in a wide yawn, and wished he hadn't.

On the screen, flames leapt from a window on grainy CCTV. Kids ran down steps. Words that his watering eyes couldn't make out scrolled across the bottom of the screen.

And Dean knew. Even before the reporter said it, he knew.

"The fire in a science lab at Ingsburg Junior High School seriously injured two students and killed their teacher," the female voice said as the shaky camera zoomed and faltered. Words that jumbled in Dean's head followed by: "Investigators have not commented on reports that this was a case of spontaneous combustion." Live shots peering into a burnt out classroom, smoke still billowing, sirens in the background.

Dean felt the nausea building, the bile rising in his throat and saliva flooding his mouth. He swallowed.

The report flipped to an interview with a weeping girl. Her face and eyes were red, a dark smudge on the side of her cheek. She played with her necklace as she struggled to speak. "It was awful," she cried, "just awful. God, god, I don't know what happened." She shook her head. The camera lost focus briefly, and then sharpened. "It was like he just... he just caught fire all of a sudden."

"Was he near any open flames at the time? Any chemicals?" the reporter asked, off camera. Trying to squeeze out more. If Dean had been there he would have smacked her. _Leave the poor girl alone_.

"No, no..." the girl tried to carry on, "there was nothing. He just burst into flames for no reason." Then she collapsed into uncontrollable sobs and the view switched to a reporter saying words that Dean couldn't really hear, not over the sound of his own voice echoing in his head.

_There's always a reason_, he thought, _always_. He could taste the bile, tried to swallow it again. And then, as he started to retch, Castiel's words: _It's not over._

_Shit, shit._


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**A/N:** Thanks for all your kind reviews again :-)

I know a few reviewers were a little unsure about my portrayal of Castiel in the last chapter. I had a few reasons for writing him like that.

Don't forget that is set (and was largely written) immediately after AYTG, in which Castiel was a hardass bastard who threatened to send Dean back to hell (and I was a bit shocked by that, because he'd seemed a *bit* fluffier in Lazarus Rising). If this had been set later in the season, maybe I would have made Castiel a bit nicer… Also, crucially, I just don't think that at this early stage Cas had the social skills to help Dean in this situation. Human frailty would have been a new one on him, and I don't think he would have known how to deal with it.

I actually really like Castiel but he is kind of an ambivalent character for me. I guess that's part of why I like him. Yeah, I could have written him nicer, but then there would have been less Dean angst. What can I say, I love making Dean miserable :-)))) There is an epilogue to this story in which Castiel reappears for a bit of a chat and that's kinda unfinished, so maybe he will redeem himself...

SnSnSnSnSnSnSnSnSnS

Sam fumbled the key for a few seconds, the lock clicked, the door swung slowly open. He followed it into the darkened room, fingers light on the handle. A blast of warmth hit him as he entered, the air thick and heavy.

In the dim light he could see that Dean's shape was absent from the bed, and a pang of familiarity hit him. Emptiness. The walls flickered white and grey as the pictures on the battered television changed for no one.

But in the corner, a chink of light shone where the bathroom door was semi-open, and Sam shuddered at the sudden, irrational relief that crept over him. As he shut the front door and ventured quietly into the room, he heard Dean's voice above the sound of running water.

"Sam?" it said, quiet, half-coughed. Whispered, "Shit."

Sam dropped the paper bag he was clutching onto the nearest bed and swore when he realized he'd forgotten the pie. Again. He reached over with a long arm to turn both bedside lamps on.

Noticed then, in the yellow light, that Dean's bed had been stripped, the sheets piled on the floor in the corner. Suddenly recognized the smell of vomit in the room. Sickly, clinging.

He strode over to the bathroom and pushed the door wide open, mouth drying a little when Dean didn't object to the intrusion.

"Dean?"

His brother stood, shirtless, hunched over the sink. One hand firmly gripped the porcelain while the other held a sopping washcloth, squeezed it out and rubbed it clumsily over his chest, up his neck. Dropped it into the water and stooped to spit.

Sam saw the vomit soaked t-shirt draped over the side of the bath.

"Was, uh, just gonna wash that," Dean choked, breathing weakly, "when I'm finished cleaning up."

Sam put one hand on Dean's bare back. He could feel his brother breathing under his palm, the occasional tremble. Skin clammy with sweat. When Dean stopped moving, doing anything except heaving air in and out, Sam reached in front of him to turn the tap off.

"You look like shit, Dean."

"That ain't half as bad as I feel," he panted. "I sure hope you didn't get that pie, 'cause the last sip of water I had didn't stay where it's meant to for too long."

Sam handed his brother a towel. Chose not to mention the slice of sugary pecan goodness that was still sitting in the shop window. "You gotta drink, Dean."

Dean straightened to dry his face and chest, all the time Sam's hand floating an inch from his elbow. When he was done the towel dropped to the floor. He turned to face his brother and Sam was startled by the translucent appearance of his face, the bruised circles around his eyes.

"It's not over, Sam," he whispered, then staggered past his brother and lowered himself into a sitting position on the end of his bed.

"What?" Sam asked, following close behind. Certain he didn't want to hear the answer.

"Check out the tv." Dean gestured with the remote control before dropping it into his lap.

Sam sat down next to him, close to him. Could feel the heat radiating where their arms touched.

On the screen, a reporter stood in the centre of the shot, a smoking building behind her. The sound had been muted and Dean was not making any attempt to turn it back on again. Sam processed the silent images for a second and realized it looked like a school. Long wide steps leading up to it.

"Is that-" he started to ask.

"Ingsburg Junior High, yeah," Dean croaked in reply. "There was a fire in a science lab. Teacher just burst into flames." He gestured an explosion with his hands.

"Is he-"

"Dead? Yeah. Toast." Dean turned off the tv and collapsed backwards onto the bed, coughing. The remote still in his hand.

Sam was left staring at nothing. When he turned to look at Dean his brother's eyes were closed, face screwed up. He reached over to grab the bag from the other bed and rooted around in it, found the pain relief Dean had sworn he didn't need.

"Here." He nudged Dean's arm with a hand holding an open bottle of Gatorade. The weary eyes opened, blinked. Dean struggled to roll himself onto one elbow and took it, spilling some onto the uncovered bed as his hand shook.

"I don't know if I can manage it, Sam."

"Not even if it comes with pills?" Sam opened his other hand to reveal two white tablets.

Dean shook his head. "God-" he gasped, then bit down hard on his lip while he fought the convulsions in his throat. Water began to run from his eyes.

"Try and drink something at least, Dean. You're gonna get dehydrated."

Dean was breathing through his nose in long inhalations. Finally he swallowed. "I think we've got more important things to worry about here than my liquid intake, Sam." He raised his free hand awkwardly from the bed, palm turned up, and Sam dropped the pills into it, watched while Dean bent his head down to scoop them up with his mouth. Didn't see Dean swallow again. "We salted and burned that poor kid for nothing." Small white circles on his tongue.

Dean hadn't meant to cause the pang of guilt that suddenly assaulted Sam's sternum, he knew that. From the tone of his voice Sam knew his brother felt guilty too. Struggling under the weight of the world for both of them, as usual.

He reached to steady the bottle as Dean raised it shakily to his lips. "The spirit must be attached to something else," he suggested, raising the intonation of his voice. "We've seen it before."

No sound for a second, then Dean gulping loudly. He exhaled. "Like an object," he rasped. Playing the game like a pro, even though just swallowing some painkillers had left him gasping.

Sam took the bottle from Dean's hand and placed it on the nightstand. "More like a building." He saw Dean's eyes widen in understanding, and shrugged his shoulders. "It would explain why all the fires have been at the school." Scrunched the bedsheets up in his hand as he recalled memories, scribbled pages. "Spirits that are attached to a building can't usually leave it. It's usually-" he paused, remembering the phrase he'd seen in their Dad's journal, "-usually a place full of emotion for them." With his own psychoanalysis thrown in: "Full of anger, maybe."

Dean was sucking on his palette and clenching his teeth. When he spoke it was barely audible. "So, what? We burn down the whole school?" The sentence ended with a half-laugh, a cough. Sam didn't respond straight away, just kept looking at the floor, then over to the pile of vomit-stinking laundry. "We can't burn down a school, Sam!" Dean croaked. "That's like burning down a, a church or something."

"We've done that before."

"Not on purpose!" Dean tried to shout, but his vocal chords betrayed him and his words faded into a hoarse whisper.

"It'll be fine, Dean," Sam responded, already calculating how much gasoline he would need, how much he could buy without looking suspicious. Smelling the burn, blood beginning to pump harder. "By night, no one gets hurt," he added, watching Dean's pale face and the grimaces of pain that flashed across it. _When this is done, he's so going to see a doctor._

He took Dean's bicep in his hands, almost flinched at how hot it felt. "Come on," he whispered, dragging his brother fully onto the bed while Dean grunted and scrabbled with his feet. He didn't think Dean could even stand up right now, let alone stay standing while they burnt down a school. As Sam rearranged the pillows under his head his brother's eyes were already closing.

But then Dean suddenly flinched, eyeballs flitted under the lids, quickly snapped open. Confusion, and then alarm in his features. "No, Sam," he growled, a surprising level of assertiveness in his raspy voice. Only his eyes gave away that it was fear masquerading. "We can talk to that boy, the one who saw-" he paused, gaze falling to the side, "-Tim, in the canteen. Kid was going to tell us something, I know he was, something about how ghost boy died." He paused to breathe a little, then continued quietly. "Maybe we can find out what's bugging him, give us some brownie-points when we go and talk to him again."

Sam shook his head. "Dean, no. This is the only sure fire way to stop the spirit. Tim's a killer now, remember? We've got to end this before someone else gets hurt." _Four gallons, that ought to do it._

Dean began to push himself into a sitting position, knuckles white as he grasped the edge of the bed. His breath was coming hard but there was a sudden bright determination in his eyes. "You're wrong, Sam."

The words took Sam by surprise, and for a second he couldn't respond. Mouth open, just trying to think. He felt like he'd stepped back in time, big brother giving the commands, leading the way. He would have smiled, a hidden half-smile, if only Dean didn't look like he'd fall over if he tried to stand up. If only Sam didn't think the effectiveness of the operation wasn't the only reason Dean couldn't stomach the thought of burning down a school. There was a question on his lips that never made it before Dean spoke again.

"Look, it's Sunday, Sam. No one's there now. You just said he can't leave the school, so we're safe until morning, right? It's-" He looked at his watch and screwed up his red-rimmed eyes. "What's the time?"

"Two pm."

"Then we've got, what, sixteen hours until the janitor starts work? Let's talk to Mike again." His arms reached together to fold across his stomach in a gesture of finality, but Sam saw the trembling that still wracked them. "No burning required," Dean added weakly, eyes somewhere else.

Sam's shoulders collapsed forwards as a dull emptiness in the pit of his stomach grew. _No burning required?_ They'd spent their whole damn lives burning things. He got to his feet and stood there, hovering, face down, hair in his eyes. He wanted to ask now, had been wanting to ask for days. The words were there, waiting, tingling on the ends of his lips.

He could feel Dean watching him, knew his brother could see the open mouth, the gently shaking head. How hard would it be to ask? _What's wrong, Dean? What can you see when you close your eyes?_ But did he want to know the answer? Almost laughed out loud because he knew he already did. Not the details, though, because who could imagine those?

When he looked to his brother, he saw the pleading in his eyes. _Don't ask me Sam, please don't._ Not sure anymore what kind of pain caused the tinge of tears that reddened them.

He reached into his hair and stroked his fingers back through it, staring back at the floor. "Okay, Dean. But on one condition."

"What?"

"You," Sam said sternly, "you are going to stay here."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

The house was white and suburban. A lawn, a basketball hoop, polished numbers on the gatepost. And a name: _Acorn Cottage_. Sam looked around for oak trees and couldn't see any. Shook his head laughing as he strode up the driveway.

Dean had tried to come with him to visit Mike, even got as far as pulling on his boots and tying them up with trembling fingers. Sam had just watched, arms folded. But when he asked the question with pursed lips, _You gonna wear any pants with those, dude?_, Dean had finally groaned in defeat and flopped back onto the bed. _Shit. Fine. Be careful._

Sam looked around before reaching up to ring the sparkling silver doorbell.

--------------------

The woman who answered the door was tall, and beautiful. Long black hair fell away behind her bare shoulders. When he looked down past her flaunted bellybutton to her long, naked legs, he imagined the grin that would be on his brother's face right now. The nudge of an elbow in his side.

Yet here he was, alone. Again.

"Mrs Johnston?" he asked, readjusting his feet as he realized he was stood slightly to one side. The empty space next to him hovered for a moment, then retreated to the recesses of his mind.

"Um... yes," the woman replied. Sam tried to focus on her scarlet lips as she spoke. Not, _not_, on the parts of her anatomy that her tight top was trying to draw his attention to. "Sarah. Can I... help you?" Her face flitted between friendliness and fear. But in the end a smile fixed itself, only faltering at the corners.

Sam reached into his inside pocket to pull out his FBI ID, feeling a little like a schoolboy with a fake student card. Feeling, in fact, like he had the time Dean had dragged him, aged seventeen, into a bar with ID that said he was a boob-inspector (sadly still prominent in their collection) and thrust him into the path of the biggest breasted barmaid he'd ever seen.

He corrected his gaze as his eyes slipped south.

"I'm Agent Manns, with the FBI," he announced, flipping the ID open. Laughed a little too loudly when Sarah's frown and tipped head told him he had it the wrong way up. He fumbled it the right way round and her long red fingernails reached out to stroke the plastic. "I'd, uh, like to talk to your son, Mike," he said, watching a slender finger trail down the side of his laminated face. "I, I spoke to him at his school a couple of days ago and I need to speak with him again, to, uh, clarify a few things."

The smile twitched and disappeared, hand pulled back. "Mike didn't tell me that."

Sam snapped the ID shut, hard. "He probably didn't want you to think he's in any trouble," he said firmly, regaining his composure, then saw the alarm that crossed her face. "Oh, he's not," he quickly reassured her. Bad cop to good cop in three seconds flat.

Her hand leapt back to lightly touch his arm. "Oh, god, you're here about the grave desecration, aren't you? I can't believe such an awful thing happened in this nice town."

Sam coughed and hoped she didn't feel him flinch. "Um, I do want to talk to Mike about Tim Wilkins," he confirmed, "but not about the, uh, desecration of his grave. When I spoke to Mike about the fires at the school he mentioned Tim's death. I got the impression there was something else he wanted to tell me about it."

"Oh?" Sarah's mouth was open for a few seconds before she closed it and nodded. "Please... please be gentle with him?" Sounding less like a seductress and more like a mother.

"Of course," Sam smiled.

"It's just, he's still upset about it, I think he's having nightmares. I can't imagine what he's going through, seeing his friend die. He's not himself any more." Then she stepped to the side to let Sam in.

_Seeing his friend die?_ "Mike saw the accident?"

Sarah gestured for Sam to follow her into the living room and carried on the conversation over her shoulder. "Yes, didn't the police tell you? You read their report, right?"

"Uh, yeah. Thanks," he said, sitting in the armchair he was maneuvered towards. Looked around at the pictures on walls, Indian rug, lilies in vases. Coffee table with a glossy nature book on it that had clearly never been opened. "I must have skipped that part."

Nearly slapped himself then, because feigning ignorance wasn't really what he'd intended when he'd decided he needed to be more like Dean. A sudden flash across his thoughts: what had happened to the cocksure, trigger happy Dean he _had_ wanted to be like? These days his brother would stare at nothing while his hands quietly shook, and then turn to Sam and smile. _I'm good, Sammy_.

If Sarah had noticed Sam's sudden lack of federal competence, she didn't show it, just disappeared to knock on a door somewhere.

Sam scrubbed his hands over his eyes as he tried to get Dean's face out of his head, Dean's sleeping face, pained face. Dead face. He reached for the book on the table and opened it at a random page. Tree frogs, cute and big-eyed. When he let go the stiff spine slammed the pages shut.

He could hear a hushed conversation between mother and son, then footsteps padding down the stairs. A couple of minutes later Mike was sat hunched forward on the sofa to his left while his mother perched next to him, exposing her cleavage as she leant forward.

Sam saw how the kid's left leg trembled, moving up and down from the heel.

"I told you what I saw in the canteen last time," he muttered, before Sam even had chance to ask his first question. His only question.

"I'm not here about the fires again, Mike, not directly. I want you to tell me what happened when your friend Tim died. What did you see?"

Mike continued to look at the floor, heel drumming harder. "I already told the police." That old line. Then nothing.

And Sam didn't blame him for the silence, because who would want to talk about seeing someone they loved die? When saying the words meant reliving the moment when life had emptied itself from the open eyes?

Sarah filled the silence with high-pitched chatter. "Oh, it was such a terrible tragedy." She put her hand on her son's shaking knee. "And Mike saw the whole thing happen. The boy just stepped out-"

"You know what, Mrs Johnston," Sam interrupted, smiling, "Sarah, I could really use some coffee." The smile felt a little too wide, a little too fake, but there was no going back.

Sarah glanced towards the kitchen and then back at Sam. He noticed her hand grip tighter on Mike's knee, and then relax. The leg was still shaking, like Sam's lips.

"No problem, Agent," she beamed, then turned to her son. "I'll be right back sweetie, you just answer the man's questions, okay?"

The long legs looked even longer now she was standing and Sam was sitting, heels teetering as her tight buttocks disappeared out of sight. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second before looking back at Mike.

The boy was still hanging his face down, though the trembling had lessened to a silent twitch. Sam clenched his hands together, shifted his weight forwards slightly. He coughed gently to release his best soft, coaxing voice, paused while he rehearsed his opening in his head. But as soon as the kitchen door swung shut Mike said it. Quietly, but firmly. "Someone pushed him." Then a deep breath and a sigh, like something had just been released.

Sam took a few seconds to process the new information, and as he did Mike swept the hair out of his eyes and lifted his head to look at him. Sam kept the wide eyes in his direct gaze as he spoke. "You didn't tell the police that, Mike." Trying not to sound too stern. "Why not?"

Mike looked around the room and his eyes landed on the door to the kitchen. Running water spluttered on the other side.

Sam frowned, considered his words carefully. "Did your mother tell you to lie, Mike?"

"No!" The kid looked up, startled. "No," he whispered, "she doesn't know." Emphasis on the _she_.

_She doesn't, but someone else does_, Sam thought. _Someone who can influence this kid more than the police_. Then a memory of stern glances and uncomfortable silences. Too much smiling. _More afraid of his school principal than the FBI_.

"Did Principal Weaver tell you to lie?" Sam asked incredulously.

Mike's eyes closed briefly in what looked like relief. "Uh huh," he nodded, licked his lips before he carried on. "He said it nice at first, but then he got real nasty, grabbing my shirt and shaking me. He said it would be real bad for the school if anyone found out Tim was pushed. If I told anyone I'd fail all my classes and never go to college." He suddenly sounded so young. "I want to go to college, you know?"

"Yeah," Sam pursed his lips, "I know." Cleared his throat, then: "Did he say anything else?"

Mike let out a long sigh. His leg was still now, calm. "Just that he had a reputation to uphold, and he didn't want stories about bullying getting out."

Sam noticed the plural, stories, and raised an eyebrow. "Is there a lot of bullying at the school?"

Mike nodded. "Some." Then he answered Sam's question before he'd asked it. "Tim was bullied a lot."

Sam remembered the bruise on Tim's face. Angry and purple, and glistening with ghostly tears. "Who by?"

"Everyone. Even teachers," Mike shrugged.

_Everyone_. Ghost's face turning to rage. His heart clenched as he remembered Dean lying on the ground, eyes open and terrified.

"What about Mr Cruickshank, the teacher who died?" Sam carried on, refocusing on the task at hand. Realizing that the invisible thread between ghost and victim was suddenly becoming visible.

"Yeah, he was always real nasty to Tim. Called him short bus when he got answers wrong in class. Sometimes he, uh, smacked him round the head, in front of everyone. People laughed."

Sam nodded to himself. "Any others?" He thought for a second, back to the fires that had brought them here. "A gym teacher, maybe?"

Mike shook his head. "He did get a lot of stick in gym though, pushed around 'cause he was small. And in the showers. People teasing him because of the size of... you know. Jostling and stuff."

Sam managed an embarrassed smile. Heard Dean's voice in his head saying _Poor kid_.

His thoughts were leaping from conclusion to fact and back again. It wasn't the most complex of patterns, but it was there. The spirit of a child, angered by bullying, torching the places - and now people - associated with his torment. Within the thankful confines of the building he was attached to.

Two more hits would confirm it.

"What about lunch times?" Sam asked, imagining his fingers crossing instead of actually doing it.

Mike thought for a second. "He used to sit by himself in the canteen. Other kids threw stuff at him."

_Bingo._

And finally: "What about out in the yard? He ever bullied there?"

"Not really," Mike answered, and Sam's heart sank. "He kind of avoided going out there. Used to spend recess in his home room." Kept on sinking. Without a reason for the fire last night, _the_ fire, his whole tentative theory was falling apart.

From the kitchen, cups and cutlery began to clink, cupboards opening and closing. Sam was almost distracted when Mike spoke again. "But, there was this one time, these two jocks tied him to the tree." Sam almost jumped up at the word _tree_. A memory of a tree burning, branches spitting. Mike continued: "They were just joking, they didn't, like, leave him there. He got a black eye though, when he struggled. Didn't stop crying all day."

Sam had to repress the smile that was threatening to break through, felt his dimples twitching. His hand was already in his pocket, fingering his cell phone, Dean's number flashing in his mind. They had their motive. All they had to do now was talk to Tim again armed with the new info, make sure this was over before anyone went back to the school tomorrow.

"Thanks, Mike," he said, looking at the teenager, who was now slumped back in his seat. "I, uh, think I've got everything I need."

Mike nodded. A heavy silence hung around the room, and Sam noticed the trembling returning to the kid's knee.

"Don't worry, it's going to be okay," Sam reassured when the boy's eyes began to well up.

Mike closed his eyes and opened them again. "When am I going to stop seeing it?" he asked wearily. "Stop seeing him dead?"

Sam gulped. "I don't know, I'm sorry. I wish I did," he told him honestly, trying not to choke on his words. His hand grasped tighter around the 'phone in his pocket, the knowledge of his brother's number saved in its memory reassuring him that Dean was really here. Not _here_, not right now, but alive and breathing somewhere not too far away. And Sam wanted to get back to him.

As he got to his feet and started buttoning his jacket, Sarah emerged from the kitchen with a tray full of cups and cakes. "I'm so sorry, Sarah," he gushed convincingly, "I really have to go." He turned towards the door. "Don't worry, I'll show myself out."

But then turned back, because he'd realized there was one question he hadn't asked: "Who was it, Mike? Who pushed Tim?"

"What?" Sarah asked, clattering the tray down onto the table.

Sam didn't answer her, just waited.

"I don't know," Mike answered, shaking his head, "I swear I don't."

"It's okay, Mike, I believe you."

"What's going on, Mike?" Sarah's voice was shrill. She picked up a coffee and took a huge gulp.

"'Cause there's nothing I'd like more than to see whoever did it get what they deserve," Mike said, folding his arms. His mother spluttered.

Sam nodded silently and said his goodbyes again, raised voices erupting as the door swung to behind him.

--------------------

He started the engine and looked at his watch. _Four o'clock. Still plenty of time._

And if talking again didn't work? They couldn't risk letting people back in that building now that Tim had improved his game enough to kill people. If Tim wasn't on the right side of the veil by midnight, that school was going down in flames.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

**A/N:** I'm sure most of you missed Dean in the last chapter, I did too ;-) Don't worry, he's back now in all his sick and angsty glory.

SnSnSnSnSnSnSnSnSnS

Sam was crouching on the floor, red spray canister in his hand. His black tie was loose around his neck, jacket crumpled by the wall. Red smudges on the dark fabric. He'd only got back to the motel ten minutes ago and already the grubby carpet looked like one of Bobby's weekend projects.

"What are we doing, Sam?" Dean asked wearily, his face half buried in the mattress. He was lying on his side, both arms gripped around his stomach, watching his brother with one open eye. Trying not to notice the blue box of matches that sat glaringly on the floor by Sam's feet. _What are we going to do?_ Feeling the first pricks of cold sweat at the base of his skull.

He watched as Sam paused for a second to look at a scribbled piece of paper, shook the spray canister like a teenage graffiti expert, slowly marked out a large circle with two smaller ones inside. When he bent low, down to the intricate detail, Dean was too tired to lift his head high enough to see what it was. Listened instead to the alternating hiss and rattle of Sam's work.

He had slept for the two hours that Sam had been gone. Or had tried to, tossing and kicking while the words _grave desecration_ had whirled around in his head. The TV left silent, because no way did he want to stumble across something unexpected again. Flame and bones had pounded his vision. He had given up trying to remember which of the fires in his life he wanted to forget. All of them.

Now he kicked off the bedclothes as a bead of sweat lingered above his eyebrow. An agonized scream echoed in his head as it rolled teasingly into his eye. Flame and bones. A flash of red. His heart started racing, then a sudden palpitation when Sam answered the question he'd forgotten he'd asked.

"It's like a séance, but more controlled. Bobby says it will let us talk to Tim better." Sam looked up at Dean. "Safer."

Dean felt heat rising into his cheeks, contrasting cold sweat at the back of his neck. He buried his face further into the mattress, not even watching Sam any more. Remembering the burn in his chest when fire boy had attacked him. His pulse fluttered in his throat.

"Why are we doing it here?" he croaked, squeezing his eyes tight as though that could combat the thud thud thud that was pounding behind his ribcage. Why hadn't Sam noticed he was panicking here? No, not panicking, because what was there to panic about? Nothing. _Nothing._ He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek and tasted the copper on his tongue. Savored the taste.

"We can do it anywhere, as long as we know his name and where he is." Sam said casually, lightly. Too lightly. Then Dean heard nothing for a second, a gentle cough as Sam cleared his throat. "I need your help, and I don't think you're up to going out anywhere right now."

It wasn't a challenge and Dean knew it wasn't. But it was at least enough to make him want to seem stronger for his brother, even if all that meant was hauling himself up on shaky arms so that he was sitting, back against the head board.

Trying to calm his rapid breathing.

"You okay, Dean?" Sam had stopped what he was doing. "Dean?"

Dean managed to nod, then Sam's hand was on his ankle again. The touch was gentle. Human. It calmed him slightly, though he could still feel his chest heaving. Trying desperately to slow it down, to make Sam stop looking like he was about to cry. He almost gasped when Sam's other hand picked up his and felt for the pulse in his wrist.

"Sam-" he whispered.

"What's going on Dean? Tell me, because your pulse is so fast right now I'm this close to calling an ambulance." Sam's voice was calm, measured, but Dean could tell it was on the verge of breaking.

"Feeling..." Feeling what? Anxious? Afraid? _What are you afraid of, Dean?_ He took a sudden gulp of air and held it, like trying to cure the hiccups.

"Are you having a panic attack, Dean? Dean, that isn't going to help." Hand tight on his wrist. "Breathe Dean, just breathe out."

And he obeyed, just, a shuddering breath leaving him before another was hauled back in, in and out, slower, slower. Focusing on Sam, on the points of contact between them. Eyes locked together.

--------------------

_Are you going to tell me now, Dean?_ That's what Sam's eyes said when it was over, glistening. Dean shook his head so slightly that he didn't even know if Sam had seen it. But his brother looked away, let go of Dean and pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose.

"I've got to finish this," Sam choked out. "We've, uh, go to finish this before anyone else gets hurt."

The canister rattled, hard.

Dean breathed in and out steadily, put two fingers to his own jugular. Measured, regular thuds. When he looked at Sam, at Sam's crouched back, his brother's shoulders were shaking. Bleeding Sam he could deal with, but crying? You couldn't fix that with gauze pads and a needle and thread.

So he watched, watched as Sam put the spray can down and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. Watched as he stared into space, teetering on his haunches. Imagined his hand on Sam's shoulder saying _I'm sorry I'm such a fuck-up little bro, forgive me?_ Watched Sam carry on, alone.

_No, not alone_. He didn't have to do this by himself, not any more.

Dean swung his shaking legs over the edge the bed, let his feet dangle. He grabbed the half-empty bottle of Gatorade that was on the nightstand and swigged it all, gulping loudly. Sam's head half turned towards him, then back again.

"What can I do?" Dean asked, voice sounding gruff. "I'm feeling better."

Sam rose to his feet, leaving the spray can abandoned on the floor. "Finished," he said, with his back to Dean, hands on his hips. Can gently kicked into the heap of his jacket.

He turned from his waist to face Dean. "You can help me put the candles out. Here." A paper bag landed on the bed. "Every circle needs four candles, North, South, East, West."

"Okay."

"North is that way." Sam pointed towards the bathroom, but he was looking at Dean, eyebrows raised.

"Got it," Dean coughed.

Dean tried his hardest not to stumble, not to fall, as he maneuvered around the room setting candles on the floor, clasping his knee tightly with one hand as he bent to the ground. Sam followed him with the box of matches, lighting the candles one by one. The smell of burning sulphur circled around them and rose lazily toward the ceiling. _What, no safety matches, Sammy?_

When the last candle was lit they stood side by side and watched the flames flicker. Sam stepped over them to turn off the light and orange patterns danced on the walls. Dean sucked air between his teeth and counted the flames.

"You good, Dean? How are you feeling?"

"Better," was the answer, and though it was the truth, the truth was relative. "Really," he reiterated when Sam stared at him a little too long. "My, uh, stomach is feeling less queasy, head's clearer, not great, but clearer, I can sit up without thinking I'm gonna puke. How's that?"

"What about the-" Sam hesitated, "-the other thing?"

"I'm good, Sam. What do you need me to do?" Not answering the question but pretending he had. Sam let it go with a lip bitten so hard that Dean wondered how he hadn't drawn blood.

"We need to sit in this circle," Sam gestured to the largest shape, " and, uh, hold hands." Any anger in his voice faded with those final two words.

A year ago, hell, maybe even a week ago, Dean would have had a snarky comment to make about hand-holding, something about chick-flicks or sissies or _what are you, gay?_ Even Sam looked at him expectantly like the old Dean might slip something out any second. But Dean just couldn't think of the right joke, not when he'd reached thirty seven flames and was still counting.

"You sit there," Sam pointed, finally turning his eyes away from Dean. He lowered himself into a crossed legged position on the opposite side of the circle and held out both hands. Waiting.

Dean sat down slowly, afraid his legs might give out and send him sprawling into the candles. Felt hot flame on his skin just thinking about it. And thud, thud, thud went his heart. When Sam reached over and grabbed his hands out of nowhere, he realized he'd been somewhere else, just for a second. Gripped Sam tight to focus on something concrete, on something now.

"Ready?"

Dean nodded.

Sam adjusted his sitting position and began speaking in Latin. _Let the spirit world create a passage from there to here,_ the incantation began, his voice firm, pronunciation perfect. Dean let the words surround him. Flames flickered as the words tripped from Sam's tongue.

When he spoke Tim's name Dean felt a shudder, not sure if it came from Sam, or him, or somewhere else. Someone else.

"Tim?" Sam asked. The shudder again, everything shaking. "We know you're angry, Tim. Let us help you."

Then Dean could feel it, could feel _him_. Overwhelmed by an anger that he knew wasn't his own. Because of all the things he'd been feeling recently, anger wasn't one of them. The foreign rage ran through his veins and lingered in his grinding jaw.

A trembling passed up and down their linked arms, and that was Sam. When Dean looked up, away from the flames, his brother was rocking backwards and forwards. Not gently, like a crazy person. Jerkily.

"We know why you're angry, Tim," Sam said, and Dean's heart clenched because he sounded like he was in pain. "We know people have been mean to you."

The dead teacher's face flashed into Dean's mind, then laughing kids he'd never seen before. Someone else's memories, he realized, and for a stupid second felt relieved.

A young voice startled him. _I want to kill them all._ The sudden tightening of Sam's grasp on his told him that Sam had heard it too. That this was still real. But how was he going to know when it wasn't?

Then two kids were laughing at him, faces jeering in his. Football jackets, expensive sneakers impacting his stomach. Dean felt it all, really felt it. He grunted. Handcuffs on his wrists, face pressed into a tree. The overwhelming feeling of humiliation.

He knew their names. Trey, Scott. Then they blurred together. A car was at his heels, fender hard on his thigh, and he was looking down at the ground, heading towards it. An explosion of pain in his head that had Sam digging his finger nails into Dean's palm. _God, he's feeling this too._

"Which one killed you, Tim? Who was it?" Dean shouted over the sound of blood rushing in his ears. "We'll make sure he's punished."

But Tim didn't know. _I'll kill them both. I'll kill them all, but they're next._ And Dean could see a dead boy lying in the road. Eyes wide and open, pool of blood under his head.

When the body burst into flames he jerked out of Sam's grasp, threw himself backwards, right arm flailing. His hand impacted a candle, knocked it over. In an instant he had grabbed it, burnt his palm, but not before the carpet scorched and blackened. The circle broken.

"No!" Sam shouted, as if that was important.

A sudden explosion of flame, and a child-shaped shadow was in the room with them. Just standing, staring. White tears flowing down his cheeks.

"What's he doing here, Sam?" Dean hissed, holding his hand to his chest. "I thought you said he couldn't leave the school."

"He couldn't," Sam replied in hushed tones. "He can now."

"What? Why?" Dean asked, not taking his eyes off the spirit. Pain lanced through his burnt palm.

Sam crawled across the floor to crouch by his brother, fingertips reaching for Dean's knee. "When we were talking to him," he whispered, "the spell created a channel from here to the school." He waved one hand towards the door. "We needed to create the channel to communicate with him. This symbol," he pointed with exasperation to the broken circle, "was to prevent him using the channel to leave the school."

Dean's mouth gaped open. Before he could respond, the remaining candle flames rose and Tim's spirit began to flicker. He reached slowly around his back to feel the handgun in his waistband. Knew it was useless without iron rounds.

Sam rose slowly to his feet and stood in front of his brother, hands splayed to the sides showing wide and empty palms. Through the gap between Sam's parted legs, Dean saw that Tim's head was turning, looking from one brother to the other.

A child's voice sounded around the room. "You're not the ones I want, are you?"

And then he was gone.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

**A/N:** So, this is the last chapter proper of my first ever fic! Finally finished and posted now Xmas is out of the way. There is an epilogue to come where Dean and Cas have a bit of a chat, maybe that damned angel will be a bit nicer this time (maybe he won't as well ;-)).

SnSnSnSnSnSnSnSnSnS

They gathered their weapons quickly, pausing only for Sam to bind Dean's hand with a sleeve torn hastily from a clean shirt. Then the duffel was thrown in the trunk and Dean was at the driver's side door, opening it with his good hand. Sam's fist wrapped around his shoulder before he had even ducked his head inside.

"I'm driving, Dean."

"No you're not, little bro," Dean wheezed.

"Dean-"

"You want to stand around and argue about this while Tim is killing someone? I'm driving because my voice is shot." He coughed throatily to prove his point. "Someone who sounds half alive needs to get on the 'phone and find out where these kids live."

Sam shook his head. "No. We need to burn the school down. Even if he's not there Tim's still attached to it, it'll still work. Now give me the keys."

The blood was pumping harder around Dean's body as he kept his grip on the Impala's door. He could feel his pulse throbbing in his fingertips, tingling lips, adam's apple. "Are you kidding me, Sam? We haven't got time to set fire to a school and wait until every inch of it is obliterated. We need get those idiot jocks out of their houses and somewhere safe!"

Sam glared for a second, features tight, then something slipped. "All right, Dean," he said, turning away to make his way round to the passenger side. Dean couldn't quite make out what he said next, figured he wasn't meant to. It sounded a little like _Whatever you need._

--------------------

The engine revved at a T-junction while Sam politely told the school secretary that, yes, he knew it was Sunday, _very sorry for disturbing you at home ma'am_, but he needed the addresses of two football players right now or else... they wouldn't be getting their new uniforms in time for... _the state game on Thursday_.

Dean rolled his eyes, thinking: _you better hope she knows squat about football, Sammy_. Then whispered in his brother's ear: "Trey and Scott."

"Trey and Scott?" Sam repeated hopefully. Scribbled in a notepad while Dean's foot pumped the accelerator. Testing the muscles in his thigh, ankle.

"Okay, thank you." Sam threw his cell on the dashboard and grabbed a map from down by his feet, pocket flashlight shining. "We got 1211 Linacre and 422 Sanderman. They're three miles apart in opposite directions."

Dean released the clutch and inched the car forwards, waiting for further instruction. Sam stayed quiet, flicking light back and forth across the map.

"What, you want me to choose?" Dean asked, voice a note higher than he'd aimed for. When he turned his head to look at Sam his brother was squinting out of the window.

"You're driving, man. Scott or Trey. Left or right."

Dean chose right, looking in that direction, towards Sam, thinking about the painful randomness of who gets to live and who dies. Tires squealed.

--------------------

The fire was visible as soon as they turned into the street, an orange hue to the night sky. Fire trucks with lights flashing. Dean squeezed the accelerator just a little harder, even though he knew that extra half second would make no difference.

They were too late.

As they drew closer body bags were visible on the lawn, laid out neatly side-by-side. Three. A whole family. He slammed on the brakes and did a u-turn, handbrake crunching.

"Fuck!" he spat. "This ghost better be a slow mover otherwise we'll be too late for Scott too." His right palm burned as he squeezed the steering wheel.

They didn't stop for red lights. The Impala swerved around a lone pedestrian, overtook a slow moving car with less room than was safe. Horns blared as blinding headlights came at them and the steering wheel spun to the right at the last second.

Dean saw Sam's body tense out of the corner of his eye, but his brother didn't say anything. This was no time for _Slow down, Dean, you'll get us killed._ As if Sam knew that adrenaline and fear and someone else's mortality was all that was distracting Dean from his own.

--------------------

He heard Sam let out a long breath as they turned into Sanderman Road. The whole street was visible and there was no fire. Yet. The Impala screeched to a halt outside number 422. Lights were on, shadows moved behind the curtains.

Dean flung open the car door and ran faster than he thought his rubbery legs would allow, barely hearing Sam shouting after him, his brother's footsteps pounding behind his. He rang the stupid melodic bell, banged the knocker, hard, over and over again. "Come on!" he shouted, starting to pound on the door with his bare fists. The makeshift bandage fell to the floor.

"Dean." Sam grasped his arm. "Someone's coming. Calm down or they'll come out here with a shotgun."

Dean's arms dropped obediently, one reaching inside his jacket to feel for the handgun loaded with iron rounds. He looked around the empty street and back again. _Come on, come on._ His heart pounded in his ears, lungs heaved.

The door opened an inch, then another before the chain caught it. The eyes of a middle aged man appeared in the small gap.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" he growled.

Sam's strong arms pulled Dean out of the way. "Please listen to me," Sam said earnestly. "We're here to help you. You need to get your family out of the house, away from here, now."

Dean fumbled in his pocket for whatever ID he could find. But before his shaking fingers could retrieve anything useful, the door slowly opened with a clatter of the chain, and a large man stood square in the center of the opening. His bulky frame filled the whole doorway. Arms crossed.

A voice sounded from inside. "Dad? What's going on?" Footsteps on the stairs.

"Scott?" Dean shouted as loud as his throat would allow him.

"Dean-"

"Scott, get out of the house, now!"

"What's going on, Dad?" The boy reached the bottom of the stairs and hung back behind his father.

"I don't know, Scott. Stay inside." The man uncrossed his arms to hold the doorframe firmly, one hand on each side.

"Please, sir, we need you to trust us," Sam pleaded.

The man's eyes looked Dean up and down.

Then Dean caught a glimpse of a small girl that had appeared at Scott's leg. "Scotty," she squeaked, "there's a strange boy in the kitchen says he wants to talk to you. Will you come and talk to him?"

The man in the door turned around and back again, mouth gaping, forehead creased. The blonde haired girl wandered forward and tugged at his sleeve. "Daddy, he just appeared out of nowhere, how did he do that?"

Dean pushed past his brother and elbowed the man out of the way.

"Hey!" A chubby hand flailed at his arm but he whacked it away.

"Which way's the kitchen?" An arm swung at him and he ducked. "Which way or your kids are going to die."

"Scott, call the police."

_Fuck, that wasn't what I meant._

A small voice piped up: "It's that way." The little girl pointed down the hallway and Dean didn't hesitate. Pushed fat guy onto his ass and ran for the kitchen, only just aware of Sam's voice behind him, still persuading the family to get outside.

Dean saw hell when the fireball flew past him, heat grazing his cheek. Flesh falling from bones that might have been his. The breath stuck in his throat. Lungs on fire. Only Sam shouting his name made the images retreat, replaced with reality: a blaze forming between him and his brother. Flames climbing the walls.

"Dean!"

"I'm okay! Get them out first!"

Dean's heart felt ready to burst out of his ribcage. Smoke began to irritate his throat and he was coughing, hacking. With gritted teeth he turned his back on the fire.

"Tim?" he managed to ask, creeping towards the open kitchen door with his gun held with both hands.

Tim stood in the center of the room, flickering. His voice was steady. Deeper than it ought to have been. "I want to kill him."

Dean felt dizzy. Smoke stung his eyes, heat raged behind his back.

"Don't hurt this family, Tim. You'll go to hell if you do." A memory of pain shot through his heart, sharp, knife-like. "You don't want to go to hell," he gasped. "Trust me." Gun poised, ready.

The voice became an innocent child again. "Hell is for bad people. Am I bad?" Tim's head tipped to the side.

"Four dead people says yes," Dean said hoarsely, before coughs overtook him again. One hand pressed against his chest. The gun wavered.

"Then a few more won't make any difference, will it?"

The widening of dead eyes, drop of a ghostly jaw. The spirit exploded into flames and Dean could see nothing else as it came at him. He fired a shot and took a quick step to the side, stumbling towards the fridge. Searing heat ripped through his arm and then he was groaning as his head connected with the fridge door.

Tim loomed in front of him, glowing, hot. Dean raised his gun again and got off a sloppy shot that somehow seemed to get its target. In a heartbeat Tim flickered and disappeared.

Dean's vision blurred. For an instant he doubted his aim, wondered if maybe Tim had managed to evaporate in the nick of time, but he was suddenly distracted because heat jumped up and down his left arm, and he saw his sleeve was on fire. He grabbed it with his damaged hand to smother the flames.

Bile rose in his throat as the burning pain spiked through his palm and extended to his fingers. He lurched to the sink and turned on the faucet, thrust his hand under the tepid water with a grimace.

Dean relaxed when he looked over his shoulder and saw the fire in the hall was smoldering and dying. He leaned over the sink and let his head hang, just breathing. Through the window in front of him, car engines roared and doors slammed. He could hear a murmur of voices and a woman crying. Thoughts raced through his head. The loudest thought of all: _now Scott's safe, now we'll burn that fucking school._

Then the unmistakable sound of an explosion rattled the window. Dean's head snapped up. Another, deep, echoing. Time slowing. He shouted instinctively: "Sam!" When he looked through the glass he saw burning cars. The sobbing woman screamed.

He left the faucet running, ran for the open door. Legs sluggish under him. As he approached, the burning embers of the doorframe began to glow as if caught in a gentle wind. Dean froze, eyes locked on the growing red heat, sudden screams sounding in rhythm with his palpitating heart.

With a roar the frame burst into flames, fiery heat blasting into his face. Wood creaked. And in front of him, a flame shaped way out.

His feet stuck to the floor. He could see nothing, _nothing_, except those burning flames and the memories that leapt across them. The pain in his arm grew until he felt metal hooks digging into his shoulders. Knife blades penetrating every nerve. The iron smell of blood teased his senses, saturated his taste buds. A child's scream resounded in his head, then a woman's, then someone shouting for help. A voice begging for the pain to stop. His.

Amidst the screams, the real and remembered intertwining, one rose above the others. Deeper, stronger. _Sam?_ Two feet edged closer to the flames.

An odd sound rose from the blackness, whining and urgent, and then he remembered where he was, because there were no police sirens in Hell.

"Sam!" he screamed, feet shuffling towards the fire. The acrid smell of singeing hair assaulted his nostrils, and he didn't pause to contemplate that it was his. He raised a shaking arm in front of his face, closed his eyes, and stumbled through the flames to the other side.

--------------------

When he reached the front of the house, breathless, Sam was prone on the damp grass, rolling from side to side. His brown jacket smoldered and a final flame was smothered out.

Before Dean could run to his brother, he saw them. A police car pulled up and little Stevie Shapiro barreled out. He saw them too, and vomited on the grass.

The father, wide eyed and dead. The mother, alive, holding the crying little girl tight against her. Scott's body, burned beyond all recognition.

Dean's gaze became transfixed. The skin on the corpse was scorched and red, blistered. Scott's hair was gone, bone shining through the contours of his face. Sinew and broken flesh exposed. Eyelids peeled away.

When Dean closed his eyes he could still see the distorted face, but in the horror of his memories it was his.

-------------------------

It was as they stood high above the small town and watched the school burn that the adrenaline finally left Dean, his legs quivering before they gave out under him. But Sam caught him under his arms and lowered him gently to the ground.

"Easy Dean, I gotcha."

"I know," Dean mumbled incoherently, the power of speech leaving him momentarily.

Sam's hand was on his forehead and he leaned into it. "God, I thought you were feeling better, Dean."

"I am. S'all relative Sammy." Eyes fluttering. "'Flu's a bitch, huh."

"Do I need to take you to a doctor?" Sam asked, hand moving to cup Dean's face. Dean saw his brothers eyes shine in the moonlight.

"Maybe tomorrow," he wheezed. "Help me up." Fisting his hand into Sam's jacket. Strong arms lifting him to his feet and not letting go.

Sam slung Dean's arm over his shoulder and gripped him by the waist, one arm slinking behind his back. Guided him slowly, patiently towards the car.

Dean slumped bonelessly into the passenger seat. "Is it over?" he rasped.

"Yeah, it's over," Sam replied, starting the engine and driving them away.

--------------------------------

Dean thought about it for a long time before he finally said the words, pretending to be asleep as trees slipped by in the dark. "The other thing, Sam."

For a couple of seconds he wondered if Sam was going to reply. If this was going to be a painful monologue. The Impala's tires swished over wet tarmac as it began to rain.

"Are you going to tell me about it?" Sam finally asked, a barely noticeable tremor evident in his voice. He licked his lips and gulped hard.

Dean nodded. "I-" he started, and then paused as the tears that started to fall down his cheeks took him oddly by surprise. "I remember some of it," he continued, words shaking at the edges. "I remember being strung up by chains in this... this void." Salty taste at his lips. "And everything hurt, hurt so fucking much. There were these... hooks in my shoulders. There was blood, and bones and-"

"God, Dean." Sam veered to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes. Dean could see his brother's arms quaking as his hands tightened their grip on the wheel. Knuckles whitening. When Sam turned to face him his eyes were bright with pain.

"I remember screaming your name," Dean gulped, wondering how long he could carry on before the words would stick in his throat, "and sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can see-"

"Stop, Dean." Sam sobbed, "just, stop." He reached out to hold his brother's arm, fingers curling tightly around Dean's left bicep. His breath hitched, stopped, and then small gasps wracked him. "I'm sorry," he cried, and a flood of tears shone on his cheeks. "I'm so sorry."

"Not your fault, Sammy," Dean winced as Sam's hand gripped the painful spot where Lucifer had groped him. "Not your fault."


	11. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

**A/N**: Apologies for the delay. Holidays and then a house move! This is the promised epilogue with a reappearance of Castiel. Thanks for reading!

SnSnSnSnSnSnSnSnSnSn

Dean hunched over the tiny motel room sink, splashed cold water onto his face, trying to wash away the last flushes of illness from his cheeks. Water beaded on the end of his nose before dripping onto the stained porcelain below.

He tipped his head up and looked at himself in the mirror. Beneath the fresh sheen of water dark circles were fading, eyes appeared sharp and focused. For the first time in two weeks, he didn't feel like he might pass out or throw up any second. A smile tentatively crossed his lips when he realized he was actually _hungry_. Hand on his belly, feeling it rumble. He took a deep breath, puffing out his chest as he stood up tall. Grabbed a towel.

Before he had chance to raise it to his wet face, a gust of wind chilled his back. The sound of large wings flapping, the prickly feeling of not being alone. Eyes darted and refocused.

Castiel was in the mirror behind him, head hovering above his left shoulder. Their reflections watched each other for a moment.

Then Dean dropped his gaze and buried his face into the towel. But even without the reflected eyes staring at him, piercing him, the presence of god's messenger still ached at his back, pulled at his spine.

When the angel spoke it was cold. "You did a good job."

Business-like.

Dean felt all positivity fall muscle by muscle from his face. He dropped the towel into the sink and reached a hand up to massage the bones in the back of his neck, Tim's charred skeleton sticking out of a fiery grave suddenly all he could think of. New found appetite gone again in an instant.

"Yeah? Doesn't feel like it." He turned to face the angel, missed drops of water still dripping from his chin. "It was me who let Tim out of the school to kill all those people." He leant back against the sink and gripped the edge with both hands, white knuckled. "I should have burnt the place down when Sammy first suggested it." Shook his head while he looked at the floor.

Castiel responded: "No."

Dean wiped his face with his arm, frowned. "What do you mean, no?"

"That wasn't the plan." The angel's features softened. "If you'd burnt the school down earlier, when Sam wanted to, you would have killed the homeless man who sleeps in the basement sometimes. And the three children who were playing hide and seek."

"That's meant to make me feel better?" Dean asked, the imaginary image of three dead children lurching into an all too real memory of three black body bags. To a teenage boy's nightmarish corpse. "Because, you know, it doesn't. Nothing makes me feel better." One hand let go of the sink and gesticulated while his voice raised itself involuntarily. "I can't sleep these days, hell, most of the time I can't even _think_. Death is following me around like a bad smell, tormenting me, and you tell me it's all part of some great plan?" He paused to breathe, bloody thoughts and images pounding in his head. Almost shouted then: "The homeless guy, the kids, were they more deserving of life than the five others that died yesterday?"

"Well, yes actually." Castiel cocked his head to the side. " They were without sin. God-"

"Shut the fuck up."

Dean wanted to move, to leave, to be anywhere but here talking to an angel about god's warped justice. The door was open but his feet wouldn't move. Knees buckled but didn't break.

"You're already doing his work, Dean," Castiel hissed, stepping closer, dark eyes and dry lips close to Dean's face.

"Yeah, well, maybe I don't want to," Dean protested. "I mean, why me?"

"Those who have seen Hell-"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll fight hardest to stop Hell on Earth, right?"

Castiel nodded.

Dean half-laughed. "Well, if you and your buddies think Hell makes me stronger than other people, that's bullshit. Every time I close my eyes, every time I see a fire, hear a scream, smell blood, I remember. _Really, remember_." Knees quivering, feet rooted to the spot. "And it fucking paralyses me."

Castiel's words were slow and considered. "You're stronger than you think."

Dean leant back slowly, creating empty space between him and the Angel. "I'm not strong, _period_," he responded quietly. "Tim was attacking Sam yesterday and I was stuck in this... flashback. I didn't know where I was. How can I take care of _this_-" he raised both hands vaguely into the air, " -whatever _this_ is, when I can't even look after my brother any more? Tim was _burning_ Sam and he had to roll around on the fucking grass to put the flames out because I couldn't help him."

"Your brother can look after himself. You can see that." Castiel reached out to put his hand on Dean's shoulder, _that_ shoulder, right there.

Dean shuddered, felt the hand grasp tighter. Gulped hard. He tried to look away when stupid tears began to well in the corners of his eyes. "Well, that scares me more than anything," he admitted, voice quavering. "I mean, I look after Sammy. That's my job, right?"

The angel touched his face. "There are more important things."

Dean turned his head away from the intrusive hand but it followed, knuckles cold on his cheek. "Yeah, I know, you and Big Daddy got work for me," he spat. "Well, you tell Him I don't want to choose who lives and who dies."

Remembering then the heavy weight of his brother in his four-year-old arms. _Except Sammy, I'd always choose Sammy._ Rescuing them both from the flames.

A second hand reached up, and an angel was cupping his face. "You didn't choose, Dean. He did."

"Then He's a bastard."

Dean flinched when Castiel sort of laughed.


End file.
